I have a plan. Well, I have lots of plans, and most of them never seem to work out. Well, some of them do work out, but I’m pretty sure that’s because those ones are carefully chosen, so that I know they’re going to happen anyway. That way I can congratulate myself that they were Planned, and they Happened because I Planned them.

When I was in Geelong (in Victoria, Aus), one of the Conservation Volunteers I had been working with a few weeks earlier caught up with me, and gave me a book that he reckoned I would like reading. War and Peace. A stunningly long, long-winded, long, long book, that I had been planning on reading for quite a few years. Since I was on holiday, still had a few months left, and had plenty of beaches ahead of me, I gave it a go. It took me until I got to Christchuch, NZ to finish it. Four days before the end of my holiday, and almost two months after I started. But it was worth it.

Anyone out there who’s read it? If you have, and if you can remember what the point of the whole thing is, then you might see what I’m driving at in the first paragraph. For those of you who haven’t, it’s a long and involved tale of some people, doing some stuff, and is a not-even-slightly disguised piece of philosophy by Leo Tolstoy. The gist of it (if it’s possible to summarise the Longest Book I’ve Ever Read), is that the more important the decision, and the higher up the chain of Power that you are, the less choice you actually have, and the less influence you have on the course of events. And in general, things are going to happen the way they are going to happen anyway, and there’s practically nothing that anyone can do about it. Reading it was probably the single most useful thing I’ve done over the past year, and I’m glad that the chance to do so popped out of nowhere. Thanks Dan.

I’d recommend it to lots of people (especially if you’ve ever tried to Change The World, even slightly), and I can guarantee that you’ll find it valuable, and finish it by Christmas.

Christmas 2009.